Animals and Ancient Religion: What Can Prehistoric Art Tell Us?
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Prehistoric rock arts, some dating back over forty millennia, would appear to be evidence for some kind of ancient religion, with shamanism and animism prominent in recent interpretations. Animals are abundant in many ancient paintings, especially the famous painted caves of the European Palaeolithic. However, the inherent ambiguity of visual images complicates scientific explorations of their significance, and consideration of relationships between humans and animals at different times. This applies even to investigations of more recent corpora (such as hunter-gatherer rock art in southern Africa), where ethnographies permit some insights. Nevertheless, ancient images are enormously evocative and invite us to examine and interrogate changing attitudes to human : animal relationships in our time.
Source: Zygon®
DOI: 10.16995/zygon.20333
Author: Anne Solomon
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,630
OpenAlex ID: W4409200043